Berwick Rangers: An English Club in Scotland

Rough end to the season but maybe better in the long run. Another good season with more cash could see the next request to go professional accepted. Would certainly help!
 
Ah gutted - thrashed them in the league as well.

hopefully get consolidate this summer with a few extra quality signing or loans and have another crack next year
 
neavie pops23 said:
Rough end to the season but maybe better in the long run. Another good season with more cash could see the next request to go professional accepted. Would certainly help!
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Yeah I think promotion straight away would have been too soon, we can't too far away from turning professional especially if we perform well again in the league this year.

JT3197 said:
Ah gutted - thrashed them in the league as well.

hopefully get consolidate this summer with a few extra quality signing or loans and have another crack next year
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Thrashing them in the league made me over confident I couldn't believe it when we lost 4-0 to them! And that's the plan, hopefully the new additions can give us that extra quality to gain promotion this year.
 
2021/22 Season Preview

We’ve invested in youth quite heavily this season but have also made some important first team signings. Robby McCrorie will be our first choice keeper (we had him on loan in 2017/18 season) and we have also signed centre back Alex Petkov from Hearts.

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Here’s our thin looking squad, a three and a half star player is considered a leading player for the Championship. I’m also still trying to get a centre back in and have room for one more loan signing.

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However we may have a problem keeping John Wilson and Scott Campbell.

After already turning down a £400,000 bid from Preston for Wilson and £300,000 for Campbell from Dundee Untied the board decided to accept a bid for Wilson from Rangers… for £100,000 rising to £275,00!

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Thankfully I managed to get them to cancel the transfer. A couple of hundred thousand pounds is a big difference at this level.

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Another key transfer was that of Scott Scott from Inverness to Queen of the South. Once again he will come up against Berwick, this time in the Championship

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We had an indifferent pre season and did not progress in the League Cup yet again. I can’t really say I’m too concerned. As it is every year, this season is all about the League and Scottish Cup.

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We’re predicted to finish 6th but the season previews have never really been accurate in this save.

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The board want us to reach the playoffs but if we add a quality centre back then our starting XI is as strong as any in the Championship so we could give it a real good go this season.

This is in spite of being one of the two semi-pro teams in the league. Newly promoted Airdrie are the other one.
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Transfer Madness

Finally we have signed the quality centre back I desperately craved in Ben Hall. He turns us into a very competitive Championship team.

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And with that, my transfer business was done.

-

Then, after weeks turning bids down, the board decided to accept bids for John Wilson and Scott Campbell.

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Despite my protests that was it, they were off. Campbell for £130,000 rising to £275,000 to Hearts and Wilson for £275,000 to Dundee United. Both are hot prospects so will probably get no game time and Wilson was immediately put on the loan list.

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I would have bought Scott Scott as a replacement for Wilson if he had not already moved this summer. But with room to add one more loan signing I thought what better way to use it on our own academy youngster who had just got his big money move to the SPL.

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He declined.

Instead we bought in his fellow Dundee United teammate Lee Butter. He’s out for 4 weeks but his 16 acceleration and 14 pace coupled with “runs with ball down left” player trait make me feel like he could be an assist machine to Caffrey. He’s definitely not a downgrade from Wilson.

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As for Campbell’s replacement, I had a brain wave. To get to the Championship we defeated Livingston in the playoff final where we came up against a very talented 16 year old who was already Livingston’s best player.

And here he is. Berwick’s record transfer Martin McCulloch.

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60% of my transfer revenue was retained so I splashed the cash and bought him for £60,000. He’s our highest paid player but is arguably worth it. However I was so pleased we managed to pick him up that I did not realise I only gave him a two-year deal. It could be something that comes back to haunt us.


Phew that’s the transfer window over. Our next game is against Dundee United Under 20s in the Challenge Cup. Guess who’s just signed for Dundee United and gone straight into their under 20 team.

Yup, Judas Wilson.

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And oh yeah, I almost forgot. We’ve made a decent start.

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We’re unbeaten and top of the league…​
 
Brilliant read, hopefully the board will let you go pro soon so you can compete properly in the prem!
 
Wilson Who?

In front of a bumper crowd of 11 our second string side beat Dundee United under 20s 1-0. John Wilson started up front and played a 6.3.

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All the transfer nonsense has took the attention away from our amazing start to the season. It’s close, but we’re top of the league and still unbeaten after playing every team once. St Mirren are bottom even though they were tipped to win the league this year which shows just how crazy the Championship is.

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We’ve also gone six games in a row without conceding. This is using the exact same tactic as last year, which saw us concede a lot as well as score a lot. It seems to be working in the opposite way this season!

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We have an incredibly young squad, but also an incredibly talented one. A lot of these players will be good enough for the SPL and they’re either going to be playing for us there or we’re going to sell them to SPL teams for profit.

We also normally have a slow start to the season… I’ll be more than happy if this turns out to be our slow start.
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Is it Too Early to Mention an Unbeaten Season?

15 league games in we are still unbeaten and top of the league by 5 points.

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The top scorer in the Championship is a familiar face. It’s fair to say Scott Scott will score goals wherever he goes, but I’m sure Tommy Caffrey will be challenging him come the end of the season.

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As well as being unbeaten, Tommy Caffrey and Lee Butter are about to play together for the first time this season after both we injured at different points, the green links are starting to appear between players and it was about this time last year where we started scoring for fun. Things are looking extremely promising.

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Our only loss this season came to Glenavon in the Challenge Cup. For some reason Northern Irish and Welsh teams play in the competition too.

In the cup we actually care about we have once again been drawn away to Inverness in the fourth round.

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Hopefully we’re able to translate our good league form to the cup and go on a bit of a run. Or just not being knocked out by Inverness again would be nice.
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Unbeatable

Since the last post we’ve played 8 more games. We’ve won all 8.

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Our recent form has been ridiculous. If we win our next game against Morton then we will break the Berwick record for games won in a row.

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Its fair to see everyone is pulling their weight this year as Berwick players make up 8 of the top 12 highest average rated players.

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Needless to say we’re still unbeaten in the league. The good thing about the lower leagues in Scotland is the relatively few games teams play as apposed to the lower leagues in England. It’s only just dawned on me that we’re way over halfway through the league season.

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With 14 games left we are 15 points ahead of second. Surely the SPL awaits us.
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Records Breaking Everywhere

We are in truly remarkable form. Just look at all the green in the schedule!

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I don’t even have to do anything during the matches apart from say every halftime “don’t get complacent out there,” which the players never seem to get bored of. We’re now 21 points clear of Falkirk.

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We are breaking all sorts of records on our way. We’ve surpassed Berwick’s longest winning streak and have the longest unbeaten run in the Championship which now stands at 26 games.

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One minor annoyance is that the bored have sold a player again. This time it was our second choice keeper Carl McCoy. We picked him up for free from Brighton in the summer and have now sold him on for 115k. It’s not the end of the world but, much like the Campbell and Wilson transfers, I feel like I could have negotiated a far better deal.

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The playoffs against Morton last year taught me to not be complacent but I am now declaring, with 12 games still to go, that we will win the league.
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Invincibles?

Could an unbeaten season be on the cards?

No. It couldn’t.

The first game we played after the last post was a 1-0 loss to Inverness to an 87th​ minute winner. Deep down I think I knew we couldn’t go the whole season unbeaten and, although it’s disappointing, promotion is obviously far more important that an unbeaten season.

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There are also rumours of a takeover bid as our chairman is looking to sell up.

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I hope this local investor is a billionaire.

As well as this we’ve had our youth intake. The only player who looks like he could make it to the first team at some point is Marc Shaw.

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We’ve also made it to the quarter final of the cup where we will play Celtic for the first time in this save.

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This means that Tommy Caffrey can’t play against his parent club so we will be significantly weaker. However I’m looking forward to seeing how superior the best team in the Premiership is compared to the best team in the Championship.
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be great to win the league! and the Celtic game will let you know what your up against next year!

All aboard the Berwick Billionaires bandwagon I hope
 
JT3197 said:
be great to win the league! and the Celtic game will let you know what your up against next year!

All aboard the Berwick Billionaires bandwagon I hope
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Beating Celtic in the Cup would be nice. Getting a billionaire owner would be nicer. It turns out both were wishful thinking...
 
Celtic Result and Takeover Complete

It turns out the gulf in class was quite large. Celtic beat us 4-0 in front of a sellout crowd of 4,099.

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It was never going to be easy against a team that pays Stuart Armstrong £74,000 a week when our entire squad combined are on £7,055 a week. However we didn’t help ourselves by conceding after 6 minutes and then from a corner on the stroke of half time.

Even though we’ll be in the same league as them next year it just shows how far we still have to go to become the best side in Scotland.


In other news the takeover has been confirmed. We are now under the ownership of local investor Billy Bowie.

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I wouldn’t say he considers us heroes… he’s only put £75,000 into the club and the transfer budget hasn’t even changed.

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So this is what the league table looks like after 29 games.

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We need to get 5 points from 8 games to confirm the title. I think it’s just about manageable...
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Going great in the league! Shame about the one loss but can't be helped.
 
Champions!

We’ve done it!

Berwick are promoted to the Scottish Premiership!

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The little club from England will be playing in the top tier of Scottish football from next season.

With this news the first thing I did was ask to go professional.

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And we have!

As part of the SPL rules we have to anyway but it’s nice for the board to actually accept a request for once.

I immediately gave new contracts to our two best players who we actually own, Lee Farrell and Martin McCulloch.

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I’ve also been offered a new deal until 2024 with a big pay rise. I think it's fair to say that it's justified.

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We’ve still got 5 games to go but now the planning can start for our first season in the SPL. I can’t wait!

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Congrats - awesome job you've done and fully deserved! Don't suppose the board could have said no to your request for professional status this time round!
 
JT3197 said:
Congratulations - what a fantastic job you've done
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neavie pops23 said:
Congrats - awesome job you've done and fully deserved! Don't suppose the board could have said no to your request for professional status this time round!
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Cheers guys, it's probably the best season I've had on FM in terms of domination of the league. I think we might lose a few more next season!
 
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